January Samples:

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Archive of  Everything I Know I Learned from Talk Radio

Those Grizzly Bears in Blue Helmets are baaack!

JANUARY 1: Republican talk radio host Floyd Brown asserts that "they" have deeded many national parks, including Yellowstone, to the United Nations.

Brown's show is sponsored by GMC trucks.

I'll take two scoops of Right-Wing Gun Nut Ripple

JANUARY 3: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur holds an on-air contest to come up with new ice cream flavors for Ben & Jerry's, those "left-wing hippie pinko greens" who have just hired a new CEO from a firearms company. The winning flavor is "Lock & Load Rocky Road". Some other appetizing entrants are "Drive-by Shooting Sherbert", "Blood & Guts Berry Banana", and "Concealed Carry Cherry".

Wilbur's show is sponsored by Crystal Breath mints.

Can you say "bribe"? I thought you could.

JANUARY 6: Limbaugh defends Rupert Murdoch's five million dollar advance/bribe to Newt Gingrich by saying Newt's book was a "huge best-seller" (maybe, but it earned less than one million dollars in royalties - less than 20% of the advance) and that there was "no political intermingling with the people who paid the advance." Uh-huh.

But wait, it gets better. A few months later, we're treated to the pitiful spectacle of a poverty-pleading Newt "borrowing" (in a sweetheart deal) $300,000 to pay his penalty to the House. Many references are made to Newt's pitifully small $150,000+ plus annual salary, but everyone seems to have forgotten about the other lucrative sweetheart deals he benefitted from just two or three years ago. How did Newt manage to spend his windfalls (including the advance from Murdoch and other book royalties) so quickly? This is not a person who should be responsible for setting the nation's budget.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by Melatonex melatonin pills.

The epitome of civility

JANUARY 8: Limbaugh makes his seminal contribution to the discussion of Ben & Jerry's new CEO by calling Ben and Jerry "long-haired maggot-infested dope-smoking" hippies.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by CompUSA.

Suggested reading for Carlson: Les Miserables

JANUARY 9: Republican talk radio host John Carlson uses the looting of an overturned armored car in a poor neighborhood to explain how poor people get and stay that way.

Echoing William Bennett, Carlson informs us that economic poverty is caused by "moral poverty". This implies, of course, that the converse is also true - that economic wealth is caused by superior moral virtues. This smug and self-satisfied philosophy is more truthfully stated as "comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted."

Carlson further fulminates that it's "stupid" to think that "joblessness causes crime", and that poverty and crime aren't the results of factories and businesses relocating, they are the cause of that relocation.

Does "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap agree? He's an expert on closing factories, having closed more American factories and thrown more American workers out of jobs than any other single individual in recent US history. At Scott Paper, he fired 11,000 employees, and at Sunbeam, he's closing 18 factories and six offices, firing a total of 6,000 employees. Chainsaw Al has never cited poverty and crime as his reason to close a factory - he just says a company's primary responsibility is to the shareholders, not the community.

Carlson's show is sponsored by American Spectator magazine.

Help, I'm ROTFL and I can't get up!

JANUARY 9: Republican talk radio host John Carlson's special guest today is from the Heritage Institute (snicker): it's Ed Meese (HA!), who holds the Ronald Reagan Chair of Public Policy (WHOOAAHAAHA!) at the Institute.

Carlson's show is sponsored by Meow Mix.

And the runners-up are: the Bubonic Plague and World War II

JANUARY 10: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur (mis)informs us that "the State has killed more people than war, disease, and pestilence."

Wilbur's show is sponsored by Heartscan.

You, Sir, are no Thomas Paine

JANUARY 10: Republican talk radio host Michael Reagan asserts that "Thomas Paine was the first talk radio host" and modestly proclaims that "he (Paine) might be some competition for me."

Reagan's show is sponsored by Quaker Corn Flakes.

It's only bad when Democrats do it

JANUARY 13: Republican talk radio host Michael Medved is severely indignant that "[Newt's] private conversation (where Newt broke his agreement not to organize a campaign to "spin" his admission of lying to Congress) was taped without knowledge or approval of all parties."

It's odd that Medved didn't make a similar fuss about Floyd Brown setting up a 1-900 phone number during the 1992 Presidential election where callers could listen to a tape of a purported telephone conversation between Gennifer Flowers and Bill Clinton. Did "all parties" know or approve of that tape?

As Pat Buchanan once said on another subject, Medved's outrage has the "singular stench of selective indignation."

Medved's show is sponsored by First Plus Financial - "No Equity? No Problem!"

What we have here is a failure to communicate

JANUARY 13: The topic on Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan's show is how unfair it is that law enforcement officers convicted in the past of wife/family abuse may not be allowed to carry guns on the job.

A caller says "if a man's gonna go home and beat his wife and/or family, if he's willing to beat his loved ones, then I don't want him having the power of life and death over me."

Reagan's response? "This is a non-issue." When the caller tries to explain his reasoning, Reagan hangs up on him, saying "you had your time and your minute in the sun."

Reagan's show is sponsored by Kellogg's Raisin Bran - "Two Scoops of Raisins!"

Chapter 2 of: It's only bad when Democrats do it

JANUARY 14: Limbaugh is double-plus indignant about the radio-scanner interception and taping of Newt's cell phone conversation. You know, it restores one's faith in humanity to see a low-life like Limbaugh finally acquire some respect for the privacy of elected officials and their electronic communications.

Why, it wasn't so long ago that he pleaded to his listeners for someone to intercept President Clinton's Whitewater testimony (videotaped in Washington, transmitted via satellite to Arkansas), decrypt it, and provide a tape to his show for broadcast. A person who did such a thing, Limbaugh said, would be "a hero!"

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by "Your Life" vitamins.

Bigger than Reagan's "We'll never trade arms for hostages"?

Bigger than Reagan's "I'll balance the budget"?

Bigger than "There are no POWs/MIAs left in Vietnam"?

Bigger than Nixon's "I am not a crook"?

Bigger than "There is no Gulf War Syndrome"?

Bigger than "Agent Orange never hurt anyone"?

JANUARY 22: Limbaugh says that the Democrat's campaign against Medicare cuts was "the biggest lie in American history".

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by Geico Insurance.

Wheelchair sex in the Oval Office!

JANUARY 22: Republican talk radio host and movie critic Michael Medved's topic today is the made-for-TV movie "A Child's Wish". In the movie, the father of a terminally-ill child loses his job because he must take time from work to take his daughter in for treatments at regular intervals.

The family is rescued from penury by the federal Family Leave Act, which mandates that certain employers must provide unpaid leave to parents so that they can tend to their families. The climactic scene of the movie occurs when the family visits the White House and President Clinton drops in to say hi to the wheelchair-bound child.

Medved says this scene is driven by sexual content. He says that Clinton is playing the role of a "seducer" and that the young girl in the wheelchair "sounds like Marilyn Monroe singing 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President'".

Medved's characterization of President Clinton as a potential sexual molester of a terminally ill, wheelchair-bound child is capped with his question: "would you leave your teenage daughter alone in the Oval Office with Bill Clinton?"

The Medvert Principle

JANUARY 22: Republican talk radio host and movie critic Michael Medved is ranting about how the Family Leave Act is an unnecessary intrusion of government into business affairs.

After Medved gets through explaining at great length how no employer would be so heartless as to fire a parent for tending to a dying child (as was dramatized in the made-for-TV movie "A Child's Wish"), he gets a call from a retired personnel manager of the Boeing company, who says it was company policy to fire such people and that he had personally fired people in that same situation.

The former Boeing personnel manager explains that, before the Family Leave Act, Boeing's policy was that employees would have to take a 30-day block of time to deal with family matters. Boeing did not provide an option for employees to take a a day or two every week to take a child or spouse in for chemotherapy. An employee who did so risked losing their job.

Medvert's response is to drop his just-proved-false argument that no employer would be so heartless and to instead endorse that heartlessness, saying that "the highest duty of a business is to turn a profit, and that outweighs any individual worker's problem." (Hmmm, Medvert must have been reading Chainsaw Al Dunlap's book, Mean Business.)

Medvert's show is sponsored by ERN: "Earn $5,000 to $40,000 per month working at home!"

Has John Carlson been channeling Eleanor Roosevelt, too?

JANUARY 23: A caller to Republican talk radio host John Carlson's show reads a passage from a biography of Harry Truman where Truman says of Richard Nixon: "[Nixon's] talking out of both sides of his mouth and lying out of both sides of his mouth at the same time."

Carlson blurts out "Sounds like FDR!"

Carlson apparently doesn't appreciate thrice-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who left as his legacy Social Security, unemployment insurance, federal insurance for bank deposits, public works like Grand Coulee Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority, ..., basically all the public works for the public good that right-wingers like Carlson despise.

Carlson's show is sponsored by the US West telephone company.

Hey! He forgot the Chinese and the UN!

JANUARY 24: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur's guest is a writer for Investor's Business Daily (a slavishly anti-Clinton paper) who has just published an article in The National Review about the ABC/Food Lion case.

The writer's explanation for the whole affair is that it was a massive plot by ABC, the Government Accountability Project (a "far-left think tank"), unions, "disgruntled former workers", Hillary Rodham Clinton's press secretary, and "Naderites" to destroy the Food Lion chain of grocery stores.

Wilbur's show is sponsored by Hampton Inns.

There he goes again, makin' it all up

JANUARY 24:  Limbaugh's goal today is to play the victim and claim that Michael McCurry (President Clinton's spokesperson) called him a liar. Back in the days when Limbaugh had a (now mercifully defunct) television show, he would send out camera crews to collect sound and video bites from unsuspecting prominent people. Limbaugh would then archive those clips for later use.

Limbaugh plays one such clip, recorded at some Democratic or news gathering, where his cameraman asks McCurry if he has a question for the "Ask Rush" segment of Limbaugh's TV show. The sound clip has McCurry saying words to the effect of "Hey Rush! How ya doin', big guy?  Why don't you slow down and give people a chance to think about what you say? Don't just tell them what to think."

Limbaugh claims that McCurry called him untruthful in this statement. At first glance, it's obvious that McCurry said no such thing. However, to be absolutely sure, we asked the crack staff at the Excellence In Parody's Center for Advanced Semantic Filtering to use their sophisticated computers to wring out every possible interpretation of McCurry's statement. After extensive research, they found that only a Big, Fat Idiot could interpret the statement in the way that Limbaugh did.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by US Satellite Broadcasting.

The Wisdom of Solomon?

JANUARY 26: Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin says that one can't make a compelling argument against bigamy without using "biblical" sanctions. If that's so, since bigamy is the crime of a man having more than one wife, one wonders how King Solomon (just to mention one of many Old Testament polygamists) got away with his 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Lapin's show is sponsored by the US Navy.

The Ruth's Chris Steakhouse medical plan

JANUARY 26: Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin speculates idly on how wonderful it would be to have a health insurance plan that didn't cover AIDS or AIDS-related conditions, psychiatric care, or out-of-wedlock pregnancies. He says such a plan would have very low rates.

However, if he really wanted a low-rate health plan, he would leave out coverage of the most common ailments in the US: heart/coronary disease and smoking-related illnesses. But since such a plan would anger his listeners, those steak-eatin', cigar-smokin', whiskey-drinkin' dittoheads, he didn't suggest it.

Lapin's show is sponsored by the US Air Force Reserve.

Don't know much about history

JANUARY 26: Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin says that the notion that Stalin was on the left and Hitler on the right is "utter and complete unadulterated bilgewater."  Lapin says that Stalin and Hitler and their societies were both essentially the same: leftist and atheistic. Lapin says the opposite end of the spectrum from them would be a religiously-based culture (like modern-day Iran?).

One wonders whether the millions of German Lutherans, Protestants, and Catholics of the Nazi era knew that they were actually atheists. One wonders if the many Nazi Army Chaplains knew that they were actually atheists.

Lapin says that Hitler was actually a leftist because he nationalized industries. This would come as a surprise to the Krupp family, German arms manufacturers to whom Hitler gave a special exemption from German inheritance laws in order to keep their manufacturing empire in family hands. Not only were they not nationalized, they, along with many other German industrialists and corporations, profited handsomely from their close links with the Nazis.

Lapin's show is sponsored by Interwest Bank.

Don't know much about the Middle Ages

JANUARY 26: Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin says that medieval Europe had a secular (non-religious) people and a religious government, whereas today the US has a secular government and a religious people.

Hmmm. Those medieval Europeans sure built a lot of enormous cathedrals for a secular people.  They sure had a lot of Crusades for a secular people. They sure killed a lot of heretics over religious disputes (large and small) for a secular people.

Lapin's show is sponsored by Lincoln Continental automobiles.

Don't know much biology

JANUARY 27: Republican Talk Radio Host John Carlson has the author of Facts, Not Fears, a book about "overblown environmental scares", on his show. (Facts, Not Fears is published by Regnery Press, the oh-so-distinguished publishing house responsible for Boy Clinton and that recent best-selling work of fiction, Unlimited Exaggeration, by disgruntled former FBI agent Gary Aldrich.)

Carlson takes this opportunity to expound that "pesticides have had a wonderful effect on the environment because they've let us grow more food on less land."

Carlson's show is sponsored by ERN: "Earn $5,000 to $40,000 per month working from home!"

The Incredible Flexible Statistic

JANUARY 31: A caller to Republican talk radio host John Carlson quotes official documents that estimate Washington State welfare fraud levels at 3-5%. Carlson ridicules this statistic, saying that if you talk to (anonymous) welfare fraud investigators you get numbers of "at least 25%, probably 30%, maybe as much as 50%."

A few hours later, Carlson is on a local PBS TV show where he pulls out the same (unattributed and unverifiable) statistic which has mysteriously inflated - now it's "at least 30%" with the other numbers inflated also.

At this statistic inflation rate of 2.5% an hour, a welfare fraud level of "at least 100%" was reached by the next day. Heck, by now it's probably more than 1,000,000%. This shows the value of anecdotal "statistics" in the hands of an expert propagandist like Carlson: with no way to independently verify or refute them, such statistics can be stretched like Silly Putty to support any argument.

Tijuana in the Northwest

FEBRUARY 3: After a listener complains about the "costly" and "luxurious" conditions under which illegal aliens awaiting hearings or repatriation are incarcerated in the Seattle area, Republican talk radio host John Carlson suggests the following for an appropriate incarceration setting: "put up four walls and build a village inside that looks like Tijuana."

Don't know much about science books (or safe sex)

FEBRUARY 4: Republican talk radio host John Carlson says that there is "next to no chance for heterosexuals to get AIDS from each other."

Carlson's show is sponsored by "Stock Pot" soups.

Civility - a lost art?

FEBRUARY 6: Limbaugh reminds us of his personal position on civility: "I'm not gonna be open-minded or tolerant or all that bilge!"

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by "Blimpie" submarine sandwiches, for which he does a personal endorsement.

Words of wisdom from a college dropout

FEBRUARY 6: Limbaugh tells us "It's all bohunk that anyone is denied the opportunity to go to college without help from the government!"

Everyone who received federally-insured student loans, please raise your hands.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by Blanchard & Company Gold.

Be All That You Can Be - and shoot Mexicans, too!

FEBRUARY 17: a caller to Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin's show suggests that US Army and Marine snipers be posted along the Mexican border to to shoot all Mexicans sneaking into the US.

And "jerk" is a perfectly acceptable term for Lapin

FEBRUARY 17: Radio Rabbi Dan Lapin says that "vagrant" is a "perfectly acceptable term for (the) homeless".

That's no powderkeg, that's Limbaugh's big, fat ass

FEBRUARY 22: Limbaugh rants about "this powderkeg we're sitting on!"

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by the Home Business Council of America - "Earn $30,000 to $60,000 a year using your computer at home!"

Big Lies hit the Big Time

FEBRUARY 28: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan announces that his producer, Paul Wilkinson, will be moving in March to Washington D.C. to become the Communications Director of the National Republican Policy Committee.

We can now look forward to getting those jewels of distortion and misinformation for which Reagan's show is famous for from official Republican Party channels (not that anyone would notice a change).

Reagan's show is sponsored by Heartburn Research, Inc.

Imagine an America without 7-11s

MARCH 3: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan says that President Clinton's "oppressive" executive order requiring stores to ID kids before selling them cigarettes will force Mom & Pop liquor and cigarette stores out of the country.

Reagan's show is sponsored by a firm selling DHEA supplements.

Mark Fuhrman - Martyr, or Saint?

MARCH 4: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur has Mark Fuhrman, that unprejudiced detective of O.J. trial fame, on his show to pitch his new book, published by (guess who) the ultra-prestigious Regnery Press (publishers of Unlimited Imagination, that best-selling work of fiction by disgruntled former FBI agent Gary Aldrich).

Wilbur's bleeding heart goes out to convicted felon Fuhrman. Wilbur tells Fuhrman "you're a victim", and that Fuhrman was "painted" as a racist. Wilbur wishes him "the best of luck" and "I hope you get your pardon someday, because you deserve it."  Wilbur commiserates with Fuhrman's tough luck, saying that he "can't see losing your rights (e.g. right to possess a gun) over a perjury charge on a technicality." At the end of the interview, Wilbur says "(I) hope you (the radio audience) enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed having him here."

Wilbur's show is sponsored by MCI.

Facts are stupid things

MARCH 4: Limbaugh says Nixon's "Checkers" speech was where he said "I am not a crook". In real life, Nixon gave the Checkers speech in 1952 and said "I am not a crook" in 1973, but with Limbaugh, this is about as close to reality as he ever gets.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by the Bravo credit card.

How convenient that dead women can't talk back

MARCH 3: Limbaugh mockingly says that the best way to honor the recent death of Judi Bari , an Earth First! activist, is to have a "21 chainsaw salute" and to "cut all of our trees to half-staff". He also calls her an "environmental wacko" who "planted a bomb under her own car seat."

A caller chastises Limbaugh for his coarse humor at the expense of a dead person, saying he's "throwing eggs at a funeral procession."

On his show the next day, after having had time to reflect on his "egg-throwing", Limbaugh brings the subject up again so that he can proudly say: "we stand by what we said."

Those of us looking forward to pissing on Limbaugh's grave won't apologize, either.

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by Goldberg, Fancher, and Jones, divorce lawyers for men, at 1-800-DIVORCE.

Reaganomics Redux, or, Math is hard!

MARCH 4: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan is still vainly trying to cover up his father's astronomical deficits, saying "Carter's last deficit was more than $60 Billion. My father brought the deficit down every year until Bush increased it again."

It's pathetic, isn't it, how the hard-core apologists for voodoo/supply-side economics keep up their futile and embarrassing attempts to explain away the $1,800 Billion (nearly 2 Trillion) dollars that Reagan added to the national debt, almost tripling it in 8 short years?

Let's try to make the following proof as simple as possible so that even Reagan's radio audience can grasp it. Here's a list of (Ron) Reagan's deficits (in Billions) from 1983 to 1988: 79, 128, 208, 185, 212, 221, 150, 155.

Now, please show where Reagan "brought down the deficit every year". Take your time... No hurry... Bzzzt! Time's up! Gee, looks like (Ron) Reagan didn't bring "down the deficit every year".

Ok, let's all go back to Realityville now, the place where the president who really "brought down the deficit every year" was William Jefferson Clinton. His deficit numbers (in Billions) from 1993 to 1997 are: 255, 203, 164, 107, 23. Read these shrinking numbers and give a big thanks to President Clinton, folks.

Reagan's show is sponsored by the Fonix Game: "Raise your kid's grade point average by a full letter grade, guaranteed!". (It's too bad there isn't a Numberz Game for innumerates like Mike Reagan.)

Farts are stupid things

MARCH 7: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan says that the Indians native to the area that would later become L.A. told tales of a brown haze that sometimes lingered over their valley. Reagan then cites this unlikely tale to show that smog is a natural part of the Southern California ecosystem. He surmises that this natural pollution was caused by "termite farts" and "buffalo farts".

This is a tad difficult to accept, given that American Bison were animals of the Great Plains and didn't live west of the Rockies. (Note to dittoheads: California is west of the Rockies, so Bison didn't live there.)

But why quibble?  In its own innocent way, this ignorant story stirs memories of the hilarious tall tales of The Great Miscommunicator himself, such as the knee-slapper that "trees cause pollution."

Reagan's show is sponsored by a firm selling DHEA supplements.

There you go again, making it all up

MARCH 11: Republican talk radio host Michael Medved puts words in Hillary Rodham Clinton's mouth and then attacks and ridicules her for those words.

Medved says that the First Lady said "no, never" when asked if she made fundraising calls from the White House, but when pressed, changed her story to "well, almost never". This would be a funny story if the First Lady actually said this, but of course, she didn't. Medved just made it up.

What she actually said, as quoted in the Washington Times, was "I do not recall making any [fundraising calls], but I'm not going to say absolutely never. I just don't recall being asked to make any. I don't recall making any." This is exactly the opposite of Medved's smear.

Limbaugh - class warrior

MARCH 14/16: Limbaugh, in his many references to the location where Clinton tripped and injured his knee, seems to always calls it "the 80 acre seaside estate of Greg Norman."

Hmmm, could Limbaugh be fomenting the "class warfare" and "envy of the rich" that he so often complains about?

Limbaugh's show is sponsored by Breath Right Analgesic Patches

Yet another - It's only bad when Democrats do it

MARCH 19: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan says "if they lower the CPI (Consumer Price Index), Social Security people will get smaller checks." Actually, it reduces cost-of-living increases in the future.

Didn't Republicans call this argument "demagoguery"  when Democrats called reducing the rate of future Medicare increases "cuts"?

They'll have to pry my campsite from my cold, dead hands!

MARCH 20: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan says "68% of US National Parks are UN World Heritage areas", and that the UN says for each park: "We will come there and take over that piece of property."

Arms Smugglers at the White House

MARCH 21: Reagan is appalled by the kind of people who visited the Clinton White House, saying "if you know the people you're doing business with are arms smugglers - you've got to start questioning!", "You have to look awfully close at these things and stop looking at the almighty dollar!", and  "If you're running guns, you don't deserve to be here (The White House)".

Funny how he wasn't this picky about shady characters being associated with the White House when arms smugglers like Oliver North and Richard Secord had free run of the place and drug smugglers like the Contra hired thugs were even declared "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers" by Mike's father.

You wanna see a doctor? SHOW ME THE MONEY!

MARCH 24: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur says "health care is not a right."

Wilbur's show is sponsored by See's Candy.

Welfare queens in prison?

MARCH 25: Republican talk radio host Mike Reagan says Clinton announced a plan to prohibit felons from collecting Medicare and food stamps and welfare while in prison and that the idea for this was stolen from Republicans.

In Realityville, Clinton's plan keeps doctors with felony records from participating in the Medicare program as health care providers. Clinton's plan has nothing to do with prisoners. Reagan was totally clueless again.

A million sweatshop workers can't be wrong

MARCH 27: Republican talk radio host Kirby Wilbur, railing against paying workers "prevailing wage" for state or federal construction projects, says "one of the benefits of working in a non-union shop is you can get paid less because you don't have to pay union dues and you let the market set your wages."

Wilbert's show is sponsored by Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.